“Metadata” means “data about data”. When we talk about music metadata, we mean things like the names of albums and songs, album cover art, artist biographies and so on. To figure out correct metadata for an album may seem like an easy task, but sometimes proves to be harder than it seems.

Yesterday, the content/metadata team at Spotify rolled out a big metadata update (and we’re quite proud of it!). Our new metadata system allows for easier integration of several providers of content and metadata. Among other things, this means that we can use more data from MusicBrainz and Allmusic to enhance quality of metadata.

A big improvement is the display of multi-disc albums. The discs are now grouped together under the same album title. Each disc has a disc number and may also have a title. It’s really neat!

Another nice feature is that a track may have several performers. If you click the list of artists, you’re currently taken to the first of those mentioned. (An obvious improvement is to be able to follow links to each of the artists, and you should be able to soon.)

We’re also sorry to say that many of you probably have seen the “This album is not available in your country” message. This often occurs when several editions of an album exist, some of which have bonus discs. We only want to present complete albums, so the system thinks it’s an error that we don’t have music files for the bonus discs and removes the album altogether. This is a bug in Spotify, and we’re working hard right now to solve it. Fear not, we’ll bring back your music!

We’re improving the way we handle music metadata, which means you should experience more relevant search results and less misplaced music over the coming weeks when browsing through the catalog. As part of our ongoing negotiations with rights holders, we have also pruned the catalog. We’re sorry if this means your favorite artist is missing. Our long-term goal is to have all the music.